


The Land Beyond Belief

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adventure, Alice in Wonderland References, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Gen, Just Read It!, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Wizard of Oz References, feedback appreciated!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6932677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the middle of a New England winter, a brother and sister who could not be anymore different find themselves in a similar situation. One that is beyond belief. Against the incredible backdrop of a fantasy world where animals live as people, scarecrows talk, and magic is real, lurks the dark shadow of the Wicked Queen...a witch who finds Pilgrims like Dot and Cooper Carlisle a threat to her reign.</p><p>
  <em>An original story by Of Princes and Savages.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ...emit a nopu ecnO

_Once upon a time…_

_Once upon a time…_

Some of the oldest stories in the world started that way. Some of the best, too. Once upon a time. It meant something, Dot supposed, like, “This happened a very long time ago in another place.” She printed the letters first across a plank space on her worksheet, and then signed them in loopy cursive. Then she carefully wrote it backwards so it read: _…emit a nopu ecnO_ , only with the letters flipped–

“Miss Carlisle?” an impatient and creaky voice that always reminded Dot of the chickens her aunt kept.

Dot turned her blue eyes up to meet the dull gray-green eyes of Mrs. Norman. She wore no make up and looked haggard in her stiff charcoal dress, and had coarse gray hair twisted up in a severe bun.

 _Severe._ That was a good word for Mrs. Norman. She looked like an honest-to-God schoolmarm from the frontier and Dot had sketched a picture of her at home titled **‘Mrs. Normarm’** once.

It didn’t come out half-bad, but the hardest part had been her wire-rimmed glasses on that beaded chain. That same chain jostled when Mrs. Norman adjusted her glasses on her sharp nose, narrowing her already squinty eyes down at Dot’s English paper.

“Shouldn’t you be finishing your quiz instead of doodling upon it?”

The way Mrs. Norman talked added further credence to her schoolmarminess. If that was proper English. Dot just set down her pencil and handed her the worksheet for her pop quiz that had that funny school-paper smell, like it was fresh out the copier.

Mrs. Norman gave her specs one last adjustment before skimming over the paper. It was right. Dot may not be a genius but English was one of her very favorite subjects. It was right, she knew it.

The ancient English teacher sniffed the way she did when she was wrong but would rather eat tacks than admit it aloud, and Dot tried to press down a grin.

“Double-check your work if you have the time Miss Carlisle,” Mrs. Norman clucked. “You shouldn’t be complacent.”

There was no pleasing Mrs. Norman, but Dot was okay with that. She didn’t text under her desk in class or draw obscene pictures on the chalkboard, and was orderly enough in class to not be too much trouble. That was the kind of student Mrs. Norman preferred, even if she severely disapproved of Dot’s furry white leg warmers and bright red high-tops.

She crinkled her nose at those like they smelled. Which they did not, thank you.

By the time the bell rang and Mrs. Norman bid them all a good afternoon and warned them to be careful on the icy sidewalks, well, warned their retreating backs as they scurried out the last classroom of the day and quickly tossed their worksheets on her desk, Dot weaved through the other grade schoolers in the hall.

Dot was one of the shorter sixth graders, but she was quick and bounced up on her toes like a spring as she walked to grab her coat and earmuffs from her locker. Wearing a white cable-knit turtleneck and a blue-and-white plaid skirt, Dot was an unexpected splash of color in the halls of her middle school. Her hair was red-tinted brown with a blue ribbon tying up her ponytail, the curls of her bangs tickling her cheeks as she skipped along to the merry tune in her head.

_‘I know you, I’ve walked with you once upon a dream. I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam. I know it’s true, that things are seldom what they seem. But that’s all I know, and so, that’s all that’s stuck in my head. I know you…’_

After three or four loops of that one part of the song, Dot had her aqua blue coat and denim backpack on, tugging on her earmuffs as she skipped down the school steps to the bus. The New England winter was best described as wet, gray, cold, and unlikely to thaw until April. Which was why Dot wore a colorful coat-just because the world was gray and dull didn’t mean she had to be.

She sat by herself on the bus seat. Dot didn’t mind that. She could have the window all to herself without sharing then. So what if all the other kids had friends who pulled them to sit and chatter about the Avengers and Batman and cute boys and video games and whatever? Dot didn’t have to pretend to be interested if they didn’t want to talk to her. That was for the best.

They all didn’t care what she had to say either, so they left her alone to pretend a bright red dragon was flying abreast the bus as it rolled down the streets. Dot giggled at the idea of the dragon stopping at a red light, sitting on top of a pedestrian and her toy poodle on the sidewalk.

There was three stops before Dot’s. Dot’s stop was the next-to-last one so there was only a fourth of the passengers left and the bus got much quieter. At the bust stop. Dot could see the bright blue band around Cooper’s stocking cap. Cooper’s black slacks and dark blue coat weren’t as noticeable as Dot’s, but he had very light hair, like pale honey, and the same bright, summer-sky blue as their mother. And Dot.

Since Cooper was a tall, lanky 15-year-old and blonde and obsessed with selling his soul in the name of acceptance by social groups that had little to no relevancy to one’s future and artificially inflated one’s self-esteem, Dot supposed that was all they had in common, really…

* * *

Cooper Carlisle had been a geek in middle school, wearing nerdy graphic tees and playing chess and participating in math clubs. He had high grades and a low social life, and hated it. So when his parents moved them across town and he was enrolled in a high school apart from his old friends, Cooper donned his school uniform and resolved to become a better person.

It wasn’t like he was going to go anywhere in life playing the violin and doing Sudoku puzzles for fun. His grades might not be as stunning as they were in his middle school days, but he had more friends and even had an almost-girlfriend.

Brittney Mason was a gorgeous 16-year-old with golden-blonde ringlets and hazel eyes and dressed like she fell out of a fashion magazine. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was captain of the soccer team and a cheerleader and had the most wonderful laugh. She also had a driver’s license and Cooper had been carpooling with her and her friends.

There was nothing cooler than coming to school in a real car, not your parents SUV or the musty-smelling bus.

Brittney and he weren’t a “thing” yet, Cooper didn’t think. They’d kissed a few times and Cooper paid for the sandwiches they ate in Subway on a study-date once, but Cooper was still screwing up the courage to ask her out on a real date. One where it was clearly defined as a real date.

He’d been walking with Brittney up to her car, saying something like, _“So, would you like to go to Tony’s with me? Like a real date? I might even win a stuffed animal out the claw machine there, if you’re interested.”_

Cooper didn’t get much farther than _‘So’_ because then his phone buzzed with a text from his mother: **Held up waiting on FedEx, pick up Dot please?**

“My mom’s running late,” he sighed. “Can you drop me off at the bus stop on Water Street? I’ve gotta take my sister home.”

“Sure,” Brittney shrugged. “You gotta watch her at home or are you free tonight?”

 _Free?_ Cooper would chew a manacle off his leg with his teeth if Brittney was asking him out. “Well, maybe,” he said, hoping he sounded suave. “Why?”

“There’s a party at Ryan Butler’s tonight, you gotta be in the know to go though, because if Ryan’s parents find out they’ll ground him for life. Probably because he got caught last time, but trust me, a Butler party is legendary.”

Cooper had blurted out, “I’ll see you there.” Before he even had the logistics of when the party was and how he was going to get there.

So here he stood, impatiently waiting on the bus to pull up and drop Dot off. Dot was a weird kid, as far as Cooper knew she didn’t have friends. That was probably because she was always _‘off with the fairies’_ and daydreaming. Cooper hoped she’d grow out of that soon because while she never showed it bothered her, not having friends, he bet she was lonely.

He almost felt guilty for having to skip out on her tonight, but then she hopped off the bus stairs and skipped up to him and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Hi Coop! Guess what? We’ve got to write a paper on influential American women and I chose Nelly Bly, ‘cause she was a boundary-breaking journalist that started her career doing an undercover investigation in a New York asylum!”

Dot needed a filter. Cooper sometimes wondered if she could have a corrective procedure done to replace the filter she was born without.

If it weren’t for fear of being struck by a car, Cooper would’ve put in his earphones and blocked out Dot’s excited chatter. She was debating, now, if she should chose Nelly Bly or some woman named C.J. Walker who had some kind of haircare line. Apparently that was a big deal once upon a time.

“I would chose Victoria Woodhull, I think her name was Victoria at least,” Dot hummed, silent for all of a second. “She was the first American woman to become a financier, I think Something with investments and banks at least. And the first female presidential candidate, only she spent the night in jail and lost her chance because some priest with a stick up his butt was offended by her social life. I think she was into free-love. I dunno. What do you think Cooper? Bly, Walker, or Woodhull? No, I think I’ll do Madame Walker. Yeah. So! How was your day?”

And here was his chance, as they rounded the corner, passing the entrance to the dead midwinter park only dog-walkers and joggers dared tread.

“Brittney asked me out tonight,” Cooper replied. “I think it’s a real date. Would you be alright at home until Mom and Dad get back?”

Dot pursed her lips. Frank and Louise Carlisle were, for the most part, active parents. Usually they were all home in time for dinner like a TV family. But since their father was away for a few days trying to settle a divorce, (he was a lawyer,) and their mother worked at her own bookstore, occasionally, Dot and Cooper were left to their own devices.

For Dot that meant eating ice-cream for dinner and watching cheesy movies with their cat curled up on her lap. For Cooper, lately, that meant going out without calling in.

“Cooper, I don’t think Brittney’s that into you,” she said at last. “I mean she’s nice but she’s already got a boyfriend.”

Cooper rolled his blue eyes. “When you get into high school, Dot, you’ll learn that nothing stays secret ever. If Brittney had a boyfriend, someone would know about it. Or a girlfriend, I guess. Point is, she doesn’t.”

“Have you ever asked?”

“Why would I ask? She’s kissed me before-”

“You’re acting like the nerd in Sixteen Candles,” Dot warned. “Just because a girl kissed you and likes your company, does not mean she wants to date you. Why do you even want to date Brittney Mason anyway? She makes fun of people like you.”

Cooper frowned, looking down at the top of Dot’s brown head. “People like me?”

“Yeah. You know, smart, good at math, likes watching Doctor Who and playing chess. I believe the cool kids call them nerds-”

“I am not a nerd, and you just don’t know Brittney like I do. Besides, I quit Doctor Who in the Moffat years, and I don’t even play chess anymore.”

He missed the quiet _‘I know’_ muttered under Dot’s breath.

Cooper just left the silence between them as they walked up to their house and unlocked the door. He went upstairs to his room and stripped off his coat and gray blazer (school uniforms, not very colorful, but snappy-looking,) and set about trying to pick something to wear to the party.

And push back that wiggly feeling of guilt he always felt worming into his chest when he told Dot that she was wrong...


	2. See Dot Spell.

With Cooper primping for his date, (which probably wasn’t a date,) Dot though she would go sulk in her room over her homework for a bit.

 _‘If I’m going to sulk, I’d rather it be a productive sulk,’_ she decided, kicking off her red sneakers.

Dot’s room was painted a bright, electric blue with cream-colored trim. Of course, you had to look a bit for the walls under her two big bookshelves, posters, a Lord of the Rings Calendar, various sheets of artwork, and her vanity with a big mirror that had photos and postcards (some used, most not,) stuck all around it. Tossing a big plush pig onto her bed, Dot flopped down on her “Alice in Wonderland” chair and let her backpack fall down to the carpet between feet.

Well, Dot called it her “Alice in Wonderland” chair at least. It was one of those big armchairs with the high backs and the wings on the sides that made a cozy little nook. Like the one Alice sat in during the Mad Tea Party chapter in the book. Or the equally comparable Disney classic.

Dot wondered if her “Alice in Wonderland” chair had a real name. Like a Boston rocker, or something.

She didn’t have time to ponder for long because Puff jumped up on the arm of said chair, and demanded attention with a snippy, _“Mrrew!”_

“Hi kitty-cat!” Dot cooed, pulling the fluffy orange tabby cat into her lap. “How are you today Puffs? You didn’t throw up in my bed, did you?”

_“Mrow.”_

“No? That’s good,” Dot nodded, rubbing under Puff’s chin while scrunching her toes in the carpet. “I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? You only wanna snuggle when I get home if you’re hungry. Okay, okay, I’ll get you some food.

According to the vet, cats could neither understand English nor logic. Dot knew he was wrong because at “food” Puff leapt off her lap and pranced over to her “cat corner” near the window.

Clever stashed under a big square end table, liberated from her grandmother’s home while she’d been redecorating, was Puff’s litter box. A little ways from that on a plastic mat was her food and water bowls. Dot picked up the empty food bowl and took it downstairs to the kitchen, with Puff prancing in front of her the length of their journey like a fluffy escort.

Their new home had a nicer kitchen than the old one. Their old house’s kitchen island was so big and awkward that if you tried to clean out the dishwasher, the door was a perfect toll both arm, cutting off the flow of traffic. The whole kitchen had been tiny, and Dot imagined she could successfully cook on a ship’s galley if the need arose for her to do so.

There was a little “mud room”, that’s what her mother called it, connecting the kitchen to the back door. In the mudroom was the washer and dryer, a couple of rain boots, a stack of cardboard boxes they hadn’t unpacked yet and Dot wasn’t sure what they held, and a Rubbermaid bin that held the cat food. It kept mice, bugs, and Puff out until a human with opposable thumbs opened it.

_‘Or maybe a clever raccoon…’_

Even if Dot hadn’t known where the bin was, Puff would have shown her. The cat plopped in front of it and twitched her fluffy tail, looking at Dot with big green-gold eyes as if to say, “Here is the food human! Now serve me!”

“I know, I know where your food is, silly kitty,” Dot teased, shooing Puff away so she wouldn’t jump in the container. “You are so bossy! _Bossy britches_!”

_“Arrowow!”_

“Bossy, bossy, bossy!” Dot giggled, scooping up some of the kibbly bits and placing the bowl on the floor. Puff immediately (and loudly,) began munching away, placated.

Dot ran a hand from the tabby’s shoulders to the tip of her upraised tail. “Hmm, I think I’m gonna get a snack too. You’re a smart kitty, Puff.”

Puff gave no reply. She probably already knew that, Dot giggled.

After washing her hands, (cats good, cat food? Gross,) Dot set a box of Scrabble Cheez-Its on the island by the barstools and trotted back upstairs to get her homework. Cooper’s door was left ajar but the shower was running in the bathroom. Still primping.

With her homework in hand, Dot returned to the kitchen and began setting out her assignments. The influential American woman paper could be put off for a bit because it wasn’t due until Monday, and that would be fun to write. The pre-algebraic homework was due Friday…and not going to be fun.

Why substitute a letter for a set of numbers? Why? Wasn’t “doing math faster” why Dot had to learn those godforsaken multiplication and long division tables? Ugh.

Dot munched on a cheddary cracker, ( _marked with a B_ , if you could believe it,) staring pensively at the list of problems. Well, might as well get going until she got stuck. Good thing her math teacher didn’t mind if you showed your work on the sides…or in Dot’s case, the whole back page.

She got halfway through before her brain was feeling knotted and she took a break to play with the lettered crackers. Dot took a handful and sorted them into words, like **‘IT’** and **‘IS’** and **‘SUM’**. That last one made her wrinkle her nose and remember her math homework. Yuck.

It had been about thirty minutes since they got home then, and Cooper walked into the kitchen to fish the Miracle Whip out the fridge.

Dot watched him cut a banana in half length-wise on a plate and spread peanut butter on one side and Miracle Whip on the other, sandwiching the halves back together and taking a big bite of the thing.

That made her smile: Even if Cooper had quit playing violin and chess and stopped watching some of their favorite shows, he still defiled bananas with Peanut Miracle Butter Whip.

His blonde hair was mostly dry and neatly combed, and Cooper wore a navy blue sweater and black pants. Dot could see the collar of a white button-down underneath his sweater peeking out, and she tried not to wish he still wore t-shirts and jeans like a normal kid.

It didn’t work so well, but she tried.

“Can you help me with this algebra problem?” Dot asked, tapping her pencil against the paper.

“Mff?” Cooper’s mouth was too full of sticky mush to talk, then he swallowed thickly. “Mm-mm, nope. I gotta meet Jared at Maisy’s in, like, ten minutes.”

He started walking away when he stopped, licking a pit of peanut butter off his lip.

“So…would you cover for me?”

“Why?” Dot blinked. “Didn’t you tell Mom where you were going?”

This was something Dot didn’t like at all about her brother’s “new image”, he kept sneaking off with the new friends and lying about it. Saying he was going to Jared’s house only to sneak off to meet a girl, (usually Brittany,) or say he was going to the the library when they went to sneak into an R-rated movie. (It was a horror movie and Dot was just petty enough to giggle when Cooper was afraid of every creak in the floorboards thereafter.) Too much lying and sneaking.

Cooper had fifteen years of good up-bringing to combat though, so he wasn’t very good at the lying part. Mostly he just got lucky that Mom and Dad weren’t half as nosy as Dot.

But was he _really_ asking her to lie for him?

Her brother scratched the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at her. “Well, you know, uh, Mom-Mom’s not-I mean, you know she wouldn’t…you know?”

Dot cupped her chin in her palm. “I don’t think I do.”

Cooper sighed in defeat. “Look, I really, really want to go to this party with Brittany. I don’t need the Party Lecture again-”

“You needed it the first time! What if your head blew up because you drank a beer like the cool kids? Who would call the ambulance when your head blew up?”

“A mold allergy does not make your head blow up, for the last time!” Cooper protested. “You know I won’t drink, and I can’t do drugs because I’m afraid of needles, hate pills, and I’d choke to death on a roll of burning leaves and paper, so, will you cover for me or not?”

Dot bit her lip. She liked Cooper and all, but she sure as snot wasn’t going to get in trouble for him. Especially over something as stupid as a party he was attending under false assumptions of getting an in with Brittany Mason…

But then he clasped his hands together prayer-style and fixed her with pleading blue eyes. “What do I have to do to make this happen?”

Bingo.

“Walk me home from school for the rest of the week.”

“What?”

“Walk me home, until Friday. That’s Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. C’mon, you used to walk home with me all the time.”

“That was in middle school,” Cooper said, as if it were decades ago. “And I ride home with Brittany and her friends now-”

“Well I could ri-”

“No you can’t.” Cooper cut her off so quickly Dot barely registered the little sting. “Fine. But I still ride to school with them in the morning.”

“Y’know, that’s kinda why I want you to walk me home,” Dot fiddled with her pencil. “I hardly get to see you anymore. You’re always running around trying to make Brittany notice you or hanging out with friends I never see, ‘cept Maisy, she’s nice,-”

“That’s just who I am now! It’s not like we live in different houses Dot. But whatever, deal, okay. Just tell Mom that-”

“You’re on a study-date with Brittany,” Dot cut him short this time and she added at the end, “and it’s your own fault if you come home high at three in the morning, Or drunk. Or both. Either way, I claim no responsibility after my part.”

Cooper inhaled deeply and closed his eyes while he released the breath.

“I can work with that,” he said. “Mom can call me when she gets home. See you later.”

He hurried out the kitchen and maybe stopped to grab his coat before storming out the door. Maisy Talbot was a nice girl, but Dot only knew her because she lived at the end of the street and had been by once or twice. Since Cooper apparently thought he’d wasted the past four minutes on her, he must’ve been in a hurry to make it to her place to wait on whoever Jared was.

Dot missed the days when Cooper would’ve spent four minutes explaining the algebra problem instead of begging off a favor from her that he really didn’t earn. She missed when he’d tease her cat for eating so loudly, or even stick his tongue out to show her his nasty chewed-up banana just to make her squeal.

Looking down at her abandoned Scrabble-themed Cheez-Its, Dot rearranged **‘IT’** , **‘IS’** , and **‘SUM’** and ate the left over **‘T’** cracker while gazing wistfully at the single sentence:

**‘I MISS U’**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's funny, when you write a fanfiction, you think: "100 hits! Wow!" and when you write an Original Story, "10 hits! Wow!" But I'm not complaining at all, it's just a different standard.
> 
> And Puff, in case anyone cares, was named after Dick and Jane's cat. (Look it up, Dot did.) And her noises are inspired by my sister's mouthy black-and-white cat. And my sister is also a cat-whisperer like Dot. :3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how frequently I'll update this, but I've got an idea of where I want it to go.


End file.
